Name: The Oberoi, Mumbai
Address: Nariman Point, Maharashtra, 400021, India

The Oberoi, Mumbai

Mumbai, India

The Oberoi, Mumbai

Mumbai, India

About the hotel

Style

Cosmopolitan

Rooms

360

"Located at the city’s most southern end, The Oberoi boasts contemporary guestrooms, Michelin-starred dining and a lobby bar with live music and a dance floor."

The Oberoi, Mumbai is located at the city’s most southern end, near Colaba, where Mumbai’s most beautiful buildings and monuments are located, harkening back to the days of the Raj. The hotel is a beacon for the who’s who in town, with its boutiques, restaurants, spa and the social scene here in general. Stay here, and you’ll be treated like royalty; it will be very, very hard to leave.

The hotel pulls off perfectly synchronised and elegant hospitality, magnificently delivered by this well-oiled operation. Then again, with a staff-to-room ratio of 550 to 287 and an average of 220 overnight guests per night, the results are inevitable.

Getting inside is not easy and, unless you are a bonafide guest or visitor, you are not permitted entry. Cars are screened, as are all bags and people on an individual basis. Once inside, the lift takes you to the reception area and lobby, where floor-to-ceiling windows offer a breathtaking view out over the Arabian Sea and Malabar Hill on the other side of the bay.

The Oberoi has 287 rooms (73 of which are suites) and many look out over the Queen’s Necklace (as the bay is called due to its shape and sparkle after sunset) and the art deco buildings along Marine Drive. The rooms are contemporary and comfortable and reflect modern India. There are gold-framed paintings and lithographs on the walls, dark wood and inlaid mother-of-pearl furniture, enormous windows flanked by wispy drapes, oak floors and throw pillows and bedspreads of fine silk.

Marble bathrooms are huge and have showers, freestanding bathtubs and a choice of silk or cotton bathrobes. Electronic blackout blinds and double-glazed windows ensure you won’t be disturbed by the 24-hour action on the streets below. All rooms come with butler service (female butlers for solo female travellers), but the Kohinoor Suite is worth considering if you’re looking to indulge. Its most famous international guest was Bill Clinton, a few years ago now.

All-day dining is available at Fenix. Breakfast is served here, too, and yet, at night, a meal at Ziya – a fine dining Indian restaurant helmed by Michelin-starred chef Vineet Bhatia – is not to be missed. There’s also an Italian restaurant called Vetro with a vast wine list and the fashionable Eau Bar, on the lobby level, is where discreet gatherings and a business meeting or two take place every evening over cocktails. Just off the hotel lobby is The Champagne Lounge, and there’s a patisserie as well. The service here is faultless, and there’s live music most evenings. There’s a small dance floor, too, which would surely beckon if you were here for a nightcap or two.